A famous Tibetan commentary: Although they have no ultimate grounds for doing so, all beings think in terms of “I” and “mine.” Because of this, they conceive of “other,” fixing on it as something alien, although this too is unfounded. Aside from being merely mental imputations, “I” and “other” are totally unreal. They are both illusory.
Moreover, when the nonexistence of “I” is realized, the notion of “other” also disappears, for the simple reason that the two terms are posited only in relation to each other. Just as it is impossible to cut the sky in two with a knife, likewise, when the spacelike quality of egolessness is realized, it is no longer possible to make a separation between “I” and “other,” and there arises an attitude of wanting to protect others as oneself, and to protect all that belongs to them with the same care as if it were one’s own. As it is said, “Whoever casts aside the ordinary, trivial view of ‘self ’ will discover the profound meaning of great ‘selfhood.’
It is important to understand that no nihilistic point is intended when it is said that self and other are unreal aside from being mental imputations. The Madhyamaka philosophers uphold the middle way between nihilism and absolutism, and accordingly they distinguish between two kinds of truth—conventional truth and ultimate truth. According to conventional truth, individuals like you and me exist, and thus nihilism is repudiated. According to ultimate truth, on the other hand, there is no intrinsically existent and intrinsically identifiable ego or “I” (and hence no intrinsically existent and identifiable “other” or “alter-I”), and thus absolutism is repudiated
According to Madhyamaka, and indeed all Buddhist schools, it is this egocentric attachment to a mentally imputed self that is the true source of all suffering. Enlightenment, it is said, consists in uprooting this egocentrism at its very source so that one’s experience is no longer governed by this attachment to self
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